WB season's-end 3ple Bill, May 2011Liang, Palmer, Webre ballets

Did anyone else attend the WB's season closer, at the Harman Center for the Arts, this past week? Saturday's matinee was iffy - "saved" by the exquisitely-romantic new (for DC) ballet by Edwaard Liang, As Above, So Below. Maki Onuki was particularly lyrical and floating. The other WB premiere, David Palmer’s Passing Through, was generic acrobatics, not saying much. (Great dancers, though.) As for Webre's Carmen - well, let's just say that the fiery title role was a stretch for the usually-wonderful Morgan Rose. I'm sorry to have missed the first-cast Sona Kharatian in this role; she almost "stole the show" on Saturday as the enigmatic Lady in White (a spirit of goodness, dancing to the music of the opera's good girl, Micaela). Also, Webre offers overall-weaker choreography to the Schedrin score than the original version by Alberto Alonso. The full corps' foot-stomping routine to L'Arlesienne was downright crude, wide-open legs and all. Alonso choreographed the same music for two tavern girls sitting on stools -- one of the late-20th Century's sexiest bits of ballet choreography. There's a fine line between sexy and crude.